The Art Tribe Is Back at The Gallery Uptown

 

So what's an Art Tribe, in this case a group of artist friends who get together occasionally for lunch or wine and cheese to chat about life and art and sometimes to talk about doing a show together. In the past we've done some collaborative pieces but this year we did something a bit different, our theme is Beauty in the Ordinary. The Tribe members, Carol Cousineau, Bette DelVecchio, Barb Fugazzotto, Sandy Meyer, Annie Morgan and I, each did individual works.  Margaret Benefiel is another Tribe member but couldn’t participate this year.  She’s with us in spirit.

You’ll see paintings and collages along with scarves, table runners and assemblages and some surprise pieces. 

The exhibit is up now and the reception is Friday July 11, 5:30 to 7:30.  Hope you can come see, it's a great show!

The Project Continues

 I'm having fun just throwing paint around and not really paying attention to the result.  

And I'm finding that the less I pay attention to the result the better.  I got a few good postcards and entered three in the MMA Postcard Salon. We'll see if anyone else likes them.   I didn't photograph them before I entered them; have to take a photo when I go up to see the exhibit.

In addition to just throwing paint around I'm trying some different techniques -- some work, some don't and it really doesn't matter.  So far it's just been watercolor and I have learned that trying to make good doesn't work as well as not trying so hard.  Still want to do more play with acrylics, collage and my gelli plate.  Yes, I'm going through a lot of paper but I hope at the end of the 100 days a habit of Play With Abandon will be well established.

Fun With A Pot That Wasn't

 

The group I paint with on Tuesday mornings went to Spring Lake Library this week. Most of us use a sketchbook dedicated to our Tuesdays.  The one I am currently using just wasn't working for the type of watercolor sketching I normally do but I have more pages to fill so I decided to add some gesso, collage paper and masking tape along with coffee splatters to them to see if that helped.  It did this week but what I painted isn't what was there.

Spring Lake Library has violets on it's windowsills. Someone was sitting at the table with the sun hitting it so I went to the one in the shade.  I loved the look of the pot and thought it would work perfectly with my recently doctored paper. I quickly drew in the shape and a few violets just because I thought the pot needed to hold something.  Then I began to examine the pot.  It wasn't what it appeared to be. The reality -- an ordinary garden variety clay pot sitting in a dirty plastic container.  Oh well, I'll just paint what drew me to it in the first place and I was correct, it does work on the doctored paper.

A New Challenge

 

Life is not just the passing of time. 

Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity.

It's hard to believe Christmas is right around the corner. Time just keeps going faster and as I sort and declutter I am reminded of life passing -- it's been a good one and I expect that to continue.

My latest challenge is evolving into the season, my favorite holiday.  What I started is a 30 Day Challenge, doing a drawing in the Stillman & Birn Beta Series sketchbook my husband gave me for Christmas last year.  The one above is one, here are a couple more...

 

Eventually the drawings evolved into faces.  I had been watching a Toni Burt video and tried doing one the way she did.  Since the normal sorting and purging is going on in the studio I happened to be going through many old sketchbooks and realized I had been doing faces like that for a very long time and the line she added around her drawings was the same that I had used to outline handwritten quotes many years ago.  I felt better about doing the angels once I realized I wasn't just copying Toni. 

 

Eventually the faces evolved into angels.  As Christmas approaches our card may be an angel. I've been a collector of them since I was a young girl but don't think I ever did one for a card.

  

So far I've only done watercolor with some collage in the sketchbook.  My new mantra -- "This may not work but...." I'm going to try a mixed media angel.  So far layers of collage papers, gesso and modeling past and an angel sketched on all of that.  We shall see where this leads.

I do Love Rocks and Stones

 Rocks are nature’s reminders that even the toughest 

obstacles can be overcome

Stable and vintage -- two things that draw me in.  I've been a stone collector forever and have always been drawn to cobblestone walls, houses and streets.  I've been doing a watercolor pebbles series for over a year and decided to try some different ways of painting them.  This new series is in a concertina sketchbook so when I'm done I can see the full spread.  I may or may not continue with the pebbles series using new techniques.  

That really doesn't matter.  For now I'm having fun exploring.  Here are a couple more ,,,

I've been doing the same thing with flowers in another concertina sketchbook but didn't get to many of those this week.  It's been a busy one working at the International Society of Experimental Artists (ISEA) annual symposium that was held here in Grand Haven this year.

I did get a couple florals done -- one the way I've recently been doing them in watercolor and one totally different in acrylic ...

As with the stones, I may or may not do a series of florals, doesn't matter, I'm having fun exploring.

And if you are in the Grand Haven area do check out the ISEA exhibit at Central Park Place, it will be up until the end of October.

Morning Flowers and Tuesdays

I do enjoy doing these quick flowers in the morning after doing my morning journal.  Sitting on the patio listening to the birds and our gurgling fountain is a great way to start my day. Here are a few

 

 

As you can see, quick doesn't always mean good.  It really doesn't matter to me because these aren't going anywhere.  I was sending aome of my quick ones to my cousin but we lost her recently so these will stay here unless I figure out something else to do with them.

The Tuesday Painters are still painting and this summer the group decided to do some churches.  This is the one we did this week.  It's always fun to see how each painting is.  Maybe next week I can take a photo of all of them so you can see how different we all are.

That's it for now.  I have clutter and paintings in process to deal with.

 

 

Finding the Spark

 

Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there

We’ve all heard that inside each of us, is our own unique creative spark. I believe it – sometimes.  The trick is giving ourselves the time to explore it. Exploring is something I hadn’t been doing.  I get so caught up in thinking about what I should do that I forget to take time for exploring – just explore with no thought about making a good piece of art -- and not worrying about the clutter in my studio.

So I've just been playing with whatever I felt the urge to do and am having fun in the studio again.  Haven't produced much that's good but some not so bad and I'm paying attention to what is fun for me.

I do enjoy finding the stones in my meditative pebbles series. I also enjoy the morning warmups.  Both are watercolor.  This is the most recent warmup.

And I've been playing with making sketchbooks from old papers, some that were watercolors or collage that were either going in the trash or becoming a sketchbook/art journal.

I've been playing with art journaling for a long time but never really liked anything I did.  I know, that's the point.  It's supposed to help you find your way.  All it showed me was that my way was a mess.  Well we already knew I was messy.  Didn't need an art journal to tell me that. 

One night while I had a couple of these new collage sketchbooks on the table while I was watching the news and I started playing in one of them -- a couple flowers.  You can see one on the cover of one in the top photo. I know I like flowers so may explore them more in different media.

That was fun so last night I took the a different one into the den while we watched a movie.  For whatever reason I have no clue -- I played with part of a face. I do remember a grunge journal I worked in a few years back where I drew faces.  

I may have to play with that idea a bit more but for now I'll continue to just play with whatever moves me at the moment.  I think my muse is back and pushing me to just play.

The Promise of Potential

 

Yesterday’s reality – snow!  So I started the potential -- a still life with tulips started in my sketchbook.

This one is an experiment – how can I make the vase look like Uncle John’s crystalline vase.  I’ve seen other crystalline vases recently and the potter has said it’s their discovery.  This one I inherited from my grandmother; she died in 1958.  The one she got was an experiment.  He did perfect his glaze and his formula is at the DIA.

I’ve tried still lifes a few times but never really worked at it.  Time to try; awhile back my spouse decided we needed to get rid of things so our son didn’t have to go through everything.  To me everything is a memory of my life before Ed and our life since.  I had decided to start sketching the things with the thought that I would put them in paintings. The vase was one.   Our son has since told us he didn’t want us to get rid of anything – hooray!  But the still life idea is still percolating.

Another quick sketch today is a potential.  This time I was trying colors thinking of something else to put in a still life with the vase in an actual painting.  And another piece by Uncle John, his sugar bowl. Another from my grandmother and this represents the first time I knew I had an Uncle John.

 

I often stayed a few days with my grandmother and after she closed her shop she would take me to a movie downtown Detroit.  One such evening after the movie we were walking to the streetcar stop and she stopped to look at some pottery in a gallery window.  The gallery owner came out and began to explain to her that the pottery was by John Foster and it is going to be featured at the Worlds Fair in Brussels.  She said she knew, “he’s my brother-in-law.”  That’s the first time I knew that I had an uncle that was an artist. I don’t recall how old I was, not very. I was over the moon to think there was a real artist in the family.

Back to my week, the rest of it – a few more sketches.  I decided my 100 days didn’t need to be consistent, I’m not going to worry about losing a day or doing more than one in a day to make it up which I did this week. Here are a few more that I did get done.

 

I'm happy with some of them but not beating myself about what I don't like, it's all learning.

 

Still Playing With Stones

And I'm beginning to think about Christmas.  This little guy may become a gift tag.

I've also been thinking about a Christmas card.  I lost several addresses when a not so good technician moved things to my new laptop so some may not get one.  I've found a new technician but that's another story and it's too late for the mailing lists.

Since I'm moving back into watercolors I want to try something different -- perhaps a poinsettia, we'll see.  Meanwhile I'm enjoying playing with washes and rocks.  Yesterday's wash turned out to be a disaster.  However, I saw a couple rocks in the mess so I started playing.  There's still a ways to go and it may end up being okay after all.  What do you think, is there any hope?

Meanwhile I'm beginning to search for poinsettia images.  If you have any would you share?

I'm Liking Watercolors Again

 

August in the time for my annual art retreat in Traverse City and for the past several years I've done acrylics and collage or a combination of both.  This year I decided to downsize my supplies and just take watercolors.  

I took along my ipad because I had seen a demonstration on watercolor abstracts that looked interesting and wanted to have a better look. I didn't find it but did come across an interesting demonstration on healing stones by Jean Haines and decided to give it a try.   

Why?  I'm not sure but as I write this I'm thinking about the first time I swam in Lake Huron. There were so many stones on the shore that we had to walk out on sandbags to get to an area that was just sand.  A childhood memory that always makes me smile. I've seen the shore of  Lake Huron several times since that day in Jeddo and every time the stones were a reminder.  I expected to see the same thing when I moved over to the Lake Michigan side of the state, not a stone in site but the water was still delightful.  Not so good for swimming but great fun to play in the waves.

The painting above was my first try at her technique though I didn't really follow it.  The next one I did watch what and followed direction, or at least tried. I didn't particularly like the result but found doing the stones very meditative so I kept at it.

I like the third piece a bit better...

And I really liked the meditative part so I moved on to 4 and 5...

And by number 6 I began thinking doing a bit every morning would be a good way to start the day before moving on to more serious paintings.  These stone pieces have become a way for me to do some experimenting with more of my watercolor colors and texture techniques. Texture is another love. 

This one is almost done but I keep seeing more stones.  I may end up overworking so I'd best quit while I'm ahead. 

A New Beginning

 My muse apparently is still on vacation.  I have starts all over the studio, this one being the most recent.  I start but inspiration either leaves or I'm not sure where to go next -- or I fear messing it up.

But a better thing to do I think, is to look at it and wonder why I started this way.  I don't have an image in mind other than watercolor landscape but looking at this I see beach as though I'm seeing the landscape from out in the water.  That makes sense to me.  I do love being on the water but sitting on shore looking out at water works for me too.  I may just leave this one as it is or it could become more abstract.  

Hopefully my muse will return and help me find my way with this and a few others that are in the works.  Meanwhile I continue to do a quick morning sketch and sort more supplies that can go away.

On another note -- The Art Tribe exhibit at the Gallery Uptown came down yesterday.  I posted my piece in the exhibit last week.  I'm still lamenting the lost piece.  I truly like it so much better than the rushed piece that ended up in the exhibit.  Here's how it looked before the last two worked on it.

What's so wonderful about this is that it truly represents everyone taking time to think about where they were going to go with it and I can see them in what they did.  That and it has the work on one of the Tribe who was unable to work on my replacement piece because of health issues.  I do hope this turns up eventually but at least I have this photo. I may have to print it on a tee shirt.

The Art Tribe Exhibit Is Open

Finally, it's up and a very interesting show at the Gallery Uptown.  Seven of us did collaborative pieces for the show.  This is mine...

Each of us started one and then it went around to the rest of the tribe, Margaret Benefiel, Carol Cousineau, Bette DelVecchio, Barb Fugazzotto, Sandy Meyer and Annie Morgan.  Each piece is different and interesting. Putting the last minute touches on the opening kept me busy which is why I haven't posted in a couple weeks.  It was worth the time it took. If you are able, go see it.  

I still managed to do my 100 flowers, not in 100 days but I got them done.  The last bunch were done in my morning journal.  Here are a few of those --

And yesterday I met my dear friend Terry in Portland where we meet to sketch and catch up with what's going on in our lives.  She lives on the other side of the state.  This is the sketch I did, love the flowers, the stone wall -- not so much.

 

And now looking forward to another of my friend Karen's Remission Picnics.  I'm not sure what number this is but I'm guessing at least 20.